Indian telecom operators have lauded TDSAT’s judgement on EMF testing fee stating that only Rs 4000 will be charged by DoT for EMF testing of a mobile tower irrespective of the number of BTSs installed on the site.

Rajan S Mathews, DG, COAI said “We welcome the judgment by the TDSAT on EMF testing fee which we believe, was an equitable prayer from the industry. The judgement is a welcome relief for the telecom operators in the long run. This is a fair and transparent judgement addressing the legitimate industry issues which were considered”.

The tribunal mandated that EMF testing should be done for particular sites in toto and not for each Base Transceiver Stations (BTS) that are located on those sites.

Also, the fee is to be dropped from the current Rs 10000 to Rs 4000.

Earlier DoT used to charge Rs 10000 for such testing and that too for each BTS available on a particular site.

The court ruled that the cost for such test cannot differ when it is conducted by TERM Cell of DoT on a regular basis throughout the year.

Moreover, the normal testing of BTS sites is to be capped at a ceiling of 10% of the total sites of a TSP in a year. This is done on a random basis and is completely at the discretion of the TERM cells of DoT.

“Excessive testing in a particular year cannot be justified on the grounds that the TERM Cells tested lesser BTS sites in the previous year,” COAI said in a statement.

“It is also to be noted that apart from the regular annual BTS testing by TERM Cells, they are also testing additional BTS sites based on public requests, which the tribunal has rightly kept above the regular 10%,” as mentioned by the statement.